Night Court Changes
by Thor2000
Summary: In a sequel to Night Court Crossover, Dan and Kelly are seeing each romantically when a misunderstanding encourages him to purpose. Meanwhile, Christine forces Harry to give up his favorite junk.


CHAPTER ONE

Art grunted and heaved against the cigar store Indian he was moving. It didn't look like much, but the wood it was composed of was heavier than oak. He stopped and dropped it near Harry.

"Oh my dear lord!" Mac looked the horrible thing over as he drank his coffee.

"Like it?" Harry sat at the cafeteria table along with Mac and Roz. It was still a half hour till court time and they all spent their time to relax before the madness of court began. "It's from my bedroom at home. Christine is making me get rid of it. She says it gives her nightmares."

"I can imagine." Roz stared at the horrible frozen visage of the Indian carved out of wood. It looked like it could come to life any second now to scalp them all.

"Harry," Art had caught his breath. "Could I move this on? I've got a hundred things to do."

"Like loafing around." Mac answered off the top of his head.

"Thanks, Mac." Art looked back. "Make that a hundred and one."

"Sure, Art," Harry sipped his coffee with his fedora still on. "Just put it anywhere in my quarters. We can move it later."

"Yeah, right," Art rolled his eyes as he pushed past the new public defender. A month and a half into the job, Kelly Anderson was still grinning to be working again. She had paid her extra rent, got her possessions back from her former landlord and glad to be back to independence.

"Hi guys," She stood at the table with her briefcase and a full paper bag in her hand. "Isn't this a great day? Isn't this a day to just be grateful to be alive?"

"I think we found our replacement for Kathie Lee." Roz shot back.

"Don't be like that," Kelly shined back. "I mean, my overdue bills are paid, I've finally got money back in the bank and I'm paying less rent than before. I'm so glad to be alive!"

A drunk passed behind Kelly acting like he was trying to vomit. She ignored the retching sounds from his throat and tried to pretend he wasn't there.

"Such as it is." She added as the old wino drifted off.

"Well, I'm glad you're happy again." Harry grinned toward her. He'd cared about her a long time. "How do you like living in an all female apartment building?"

"Has Dan made it past the lobby yet?" Mac asked.

"No," Kelly added. "But I've made a lot of new friends. One of the girls is going to be a single mother so I'm going to give her all my sister's old maternity clothes." She pulled a dress out of the sack and draped it over the bag as she modeled it. "Isn't it cute?"

Dan entered the cafeteria behind Kelly. Eager to start court so he could have another secret date with Kelly afterward, he glanced ahead and saw her with the dress and the large fake belly. His legs buckled and his throat gurgled just before he passed out thinking he was going to be a father.

CHAPTER TWO

Harry was at his podium ranting over one of the felons brought before him. The short balding figure was so corruptible he could barely stand it.

"Robbing a donation box, parking in a handicapped area, soliciting, telemarketing without a license..." He looked up. "You are the most miserable person ever brought before me. There are seven deadly sins, but you appear to have started another seven. I'm fining you 1000 dollars and ordering you to 500 hours of community service. Now get out of my sight!" Harry pounded his gavel.

"But what do you really think of me." Louis De Palma groaned. He'd been living on the scraps of others since his cab company was sold to a conglomerate. Mumbling something about hitting Reiger up for the cash, he noticed Kelly with her long legs and grinned up to her. "Did anyone ever tell you look just like Kelly Ripa?"

"No." Kelly tried to ignore the foul little man.

"Well, you do." De Palma noticed Bull ready to lead him off. "Excuse me, I have to go off with Frankenstein now."

"I think you're a bit confused." Bull grinned as he started talking. "Frankenstein wasn't the name of the monster; it was the name of the scientist who created it. The creature itself was never given a real name until...HEY!" He finally got the insult as he tugged the former dispatcher a little harder.

Roz stepped in to handle the foul-mouthed runt.

"What's up next, Mac-a-roo." Harry signed a paper.

"Still on it's way, sir." Mac shuffled the files.

"Then let's call a fine minute recess." Harry pounded his gavel as Dan stood up. He looked to Kelly working and smoothed out his Italian suit as he composed himself and stood over her.

"Huh," Dan grinned as he checked to make sure Harry was gone. "Uh, Kelly, would you like something? Coffee, tea, anchovies and ice cream?"

"What?" Kelly looked at him and beamed preciously. "No thanks, Dan. Your big brown eyes are all I need."

"You didn't ask me." Bull hovered nearby.

"Don't you have some airplanes you need to be swatting down!" Dan hollered at him. It was hard enough to be sensitive he didn't need to be watched. Bull sulked off as Dan recomposed himself.

"Dan!" Kelly stood and looked for Harry before hugging the tall Assistant District Attorney. "What's wrong with you! You've been off edge since we found you on the floor of the cafeteria."

"What?" Dan looked into her blue-green eyes. "Well, uh, truth be told, I heard overheard that you..."

"Oh, Dan!" District Attorney Vincent Daniels wandered in. The vertically challenged little man loved to consecutively annoy his smarmy attorney.

"What!" Dan shot his nastiest look at him.

"I've got another dirty little assignment for you." Daniels grinned. "I need you to walk my dog, Brutus. You do it so well!"

"Why would you have a Great Dane?" Kelly asked.

"The dog picked me." Vincent was friendlier to Kelly. "To tell the truth, I'm not sure who's the master in our friendship."

"Why don't you let him eat you, you miserable little..."

"What was that, Fielding?" Vincent shot a dirtier look at Dan.

"Just straightening my tie, sir." Dan caressed his expensive silk tie as Kelly beamed and kissed him. He watched her leave the courtroom as he felt true love for the first time.

"Sir," Dan turned to his boss. "Please don't make me do this. I need to talk to Kelly. She's carrying my baby!"

"You deflowered that sweet young thing." Daniels cringed from the concept. "Okay, I'll walk the dog. I just hope he doesn't mistake me for his chew thing again."

Dan had nothing to curse at the departing little person he had to work with in the D.A. office. He exhaled deeply as he turned to find Kelly and talk to her. As he turned, Mac pushed him back into the courtroom.

"You've been dating Kelly, Harry's best friend!" Mac couldn't believe it.

"Yes." Dan admitted.

"Behind Harry's back?"

"Yes." Dan repeated.

"And now she's pregnant!"

"Yes."

"Harry's going to kill you!" Mac erupted into laughter.

CHAPTER THREE  
Harry checked his watch ready to return to the courtroom. He scribbled his signature on another legal writ and slowly rose as he finished his coffee.

"Ooooooooo, that's good java." He did a cartoon voice as he grinned to himself. He loved this job and helping the downtrodden. He couldn't see himself doing anything else.

"Harry," Christine caught him in the hallway and kissed him. "You've met my friend, Diane?"

"Oh, um, sure." Harry felt old as his memory started to leave him. He started at the petite blonde with big blue eyes and tried to place her.

"Harold." Diane grinned. "How could you forget? You all but robbed Cheers every time you came to visit." She recognized him as a recurring barfly named Harry the Hat known for pulling expensive jokes on the gang in New York.

"Chambers!" Harry chuckled and grinned to her in the hallway as his wife shot him a look. She never heard him robbing anyone. "Wow! So how's Sam and the gang doing? I heard you hadn't been back since he sold the bar."

"He owns it again." Diane glanced briefly to Christine listening to them. "We almost married too, but I realized that my destiny is to be a writer and to search for that ever attainable goal that will make me feel complete. Influenced by the Muses that guide me, I hope to persevere..."

"You became a writer, didn't you?" Harry interrupted as Christine hid a chuckle.

"Harry," Mrs. Harry Stone continued. "I invited Christine to stay with us as she's in town. You got rid of the Indian and giant Groucho Glasses, didn't you?"

"The Groucho Glasses too!" Harry died a little bit as his apartment looked more like Christine's. He remembered something the tool guy from Detroit said after blowing up the expo center. It was something about live a little, die a little inside. He'd heard it from a guy behind a fence.

"I'll get them..." Harry was kissed by his wife as they left him to return to court. Standing in place, Harry glanced to Bull announcing him once more.

"All rise," The lights above Bull's head looked like antlers growing out of his bald scalp. "Criminal Court Part Two now in session, the honorable Harold T. Stone presiding, and now here's... Harry!"

Harry, Mac, Kelly and Dan looked at him.

"Sorry." He chirped up.

"All right, Mac," Harry took his seat once more. "What's up next?"

"You'll love this one, sir. Introducing Strong Man, Blind Guy and the Amazing Cleavage... Charge: vigilantism."

Roz led out three characters. The big heavy guy in blue spandex was Strong Man. He was considered as strong as a bull and almost as bright. His partner in the red spandex, cape and cowl was Blind Guy, a former fake magician while the leader was Cleavage, an over-developed clone of both Anna Nicole Smith and Victoria Principal. Garbed in a purple bustier that barely covered her, she seemed to strike a pose as Dan gawked at her breasts about to explode from her ill-fitting bodice.

"You got a midget in there pushing those things up, don't you?" Dan mumbled as he looked at their file. "Sir, these freaks in training were arrested for beating the crap out of some drug-dealers on 43rd Avenue."

"We are not freaks!" Blind Guy stepped forward. "We are superheroes! We have powers to protect mankind! My senses are strong enough to tell you that someone has had someone in this room has had chili-covered pizza for dinner."

"I thought I told you to gargle before you came back in here." Roz looked to Bull.

"It is time to take back the streets from the vermin who would ravage it!" Strong Man declared as the room cheered.

"Make the world safe for our children!" Cleavage announced as the three of them merged in mock pose.

"What do you do?" Kelly looked at Cleavage's chest. "Beat people over the head with those things?"

"Yes!" Cleavage pulled up her bustier.

"Sir," Kelly rolled her eyes. "These people just happen to be three parents who got together because they care about their children. They saw the warning on the news about the drug problem among teens and decided to take things into their own hands."

"Yeah," Harry couldn't help but look at the huge chest on Cleavage and pictured Christine with them. "But unfortunately it's still against the law to take the law into your own hands. A hundred dollar fines each and time served." He rapped his gavel.

"Friends," Blind Guy turned to the people watching the proceedings. "We will not be stopped. This is but a minor obstacle! We will be back!"

"No sequel for you." Roz dragged him away as Bull handled the rest.

"What's next, Mac?" Harry signed the warrant on the last three.

"Norbett Wiley, attempted burglary." Mac looked up. The short bald guy looked like Don Rickles. He was dressed all in black and had an air-conditioning duct still rammed down over his chest and arms.

"Sir," Dan looked at the guy and grinned. "Wiley climbed up on to the roof of the Save and Trust Bank and tried to get inside through an air-conditioning vent before getting stuck."

"Oh yeah, hockey puck." Wiley looked up at him. "Prove it!"

CHAPTER FOUR

"Hector Fonzarelli, sir." Mac announced the young man who entered the courtroom. "Charge, shoplifting."

Harry sat up and looked the boy over. The thirteen-year-old Italian youth just grinned harmlessly as if he was frightened to death what was going to happen next. No one had got his father in Milwaukee and the young man knew the next person to be called was his Uncle Tony in Connecticut.

"Young man," Harry grinned and coaxed the boy closer. "What do you want to say for yourself?"

"I'd have gotten away with it if the turkey hadn't ripped through my jacket?" Hector grinned nervously.

"Wrong answer."

"Come on, judge," The boy grabbed the edge of Harry's bench. "Don't send me to jail. My dad will kill me. He's the hitting kind."

"Hector Eugene Fonzarelli!" A voice yelled from the back of court. Hector's eyes went wild at the sound of his uncle's voice.

"Excuse me," Harry pounded his gavel as another taller, burlier Italian-American came up to him. Tall and muscular, the guy wore jeans and a tight red t-shirt. "Do you know this boy?"

"Yes sir," The guy introduced himself. "I'm Tony Micelli. I'm the boy's guardian out here. His father is Eugene Fonzarelli back in Milwaukee, nephew of my great uncle Arthur Fonzarelli..."

"Wonderful name." Dan grinned as Kelly listened.

"Don't let him hear you say that." Tony looked at Dan. "Uncle Fonzie'd break you in half." Tony turned back to Hector. "Why'd you steal that turkey!" He knocked him up the head as some stereotypical Italian.

"Some boys put me up to it!" Hector confessed.

"Well," Harry rounded his eyes at the turn of events. "Since the boy was caught and you're here, let's just make this a slap on the wrist. Counselors?"

"Fine." Dan and Kelly echoed back.

"Great. Case dismissed." Harry pounded his gavel as Micelli thanked him and squeezed Hector a bit in a headlock. As he dragged the boy off and swatted him a few times, Harry turned to Mac.

"What's next, Mac?"

"Harry," Christine interrupted as she stuck her head into the courtroom. "You'll have to get rid of the stuffed bear in the living room."

"Not Waldo!" Harry screamed. "Twenty minute recess!" He rushed to talk to her about the stuff she wanted to get rid of as Mac dropped the next case. Roz turned to leave and find Bull as Dan gazed upon Kelly then gestured for Mac to go. Taking the hint, the court clerk grinned and vacated as Dan gasped and advanced on Kelly.

"Kelly," He exhaled deeply once more. "I know about...you know."

"I know?" She asked him a bit perplexed.

"I just want you to know..." He tugged as his collar as he dropped to his knees to look her in the eyes. "That... I'm a man who takes care of his... responsibilities."

"Dan," Kelly turned and looked at him. "What are you telling me?"

"What... who... wish..." Dan pounded his head on the table to get the words out. "Will you m-m-m-m-marry me?"

Kelly stared at him in disbelief for a few seconds as the question reached her mind. Her eyes bounced over his brown eyes as he looked so adorable just as a smile spread over her ruby lips and over her rosy cheeks.

"Yes!" She jumped into his arms as they stood together. Dan kissed and squeezed her tight. She was the only girl to ever say she loved him. It was almost as if she was meant to be his soul mate as tears fell from his eyes.

"Oh, Kelly..." He cried with happiness in his heart. "I love you so much. I just want to know I will be the best father in the world to your baby."

"Yes, yes, of course." She kissed and hugged him. "As soon as we have one." Dan suddenly made a different look as if he'd been had.

"Huh?"

"Dan..." Kelly rolled her eyes. "Consider me old-fashioned, but I want to be married when I have our kids." She grinned and hugged him again.

"But, but, but..." Dan stuttered a bit. "The dress, those clothes!"

"Dan, those were for someone in my building." She looked back at him. "You didn't think... you didn't think I was pregnant, did you?"

Dan just grinned and tried to keep himself from looking foolish. Kelly dropped her jaw lightly as she pulled her long blonde hair behind her ear.

"So that's why you..." Her voice cracked a bit. "Oh, Dan! You big wonderful, sensitive... Don't worry. I won't hold you to it." She felt a bit awkward.

"Kelly," Dan's heart went out as she turned away. "If there's anyone I'd want to marry," He sounded more solemn than he'd ever been in his life. "It would be you."

"Excuse me..." She felt her heart breaking a bit as she rushed from the courtroom. Dan stood by himself wondering if he should run after her, or let her come back. All the feelings and emotions entering him were overwhelming him and he had no idea what to do. He'd never been in love before in his life. His entire life of one-night stands did not leave him ready to understand nor comprehend a relationship.

"Dan," Mac turned back into the room after eavesdropping. "You want to talk about it?"

"No." Dan left the opposite way Kelly had.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Dan, where are you?" Kelly whispered silently as she stirred cream to her coffee. She sat alone expecting Dan to come back to her as she sat by herself. A shadow passed over her table as she looked up and saw Roz.

"I hear Dan purposed and you turned him down." She sat down.

"You know!" Kelly answered in disbelief.

"Everybody knows!" Roz rolled her eyes. "Except Harry and no one wants him to know."

"Why hasn't he come to me, Roz?" Kelly asked crying into her coffee. "He let me run away."

"Kelly," Roz pushed the cup of coffee away. "You haven't been here long enough to know the real Dan Fielding we've got to know and despise. Dan Fielding is a philandering, despicable piece of human waste who would sell his soul for a piece of prime real estate. However, you've got to know the Dan he rarely if ever shares with anyone. The kind, sensitive, insecure Dan Fielding. He doesn't know what to do. He has never met a person like you who  
brought out the good in him. You found the Dan he has kept hidden. You have to show him what to do."

"Was he really that obnoxious?" Kelly refused to believe it.

"He lost an election to a dead man, told Christine to have sex with him after he saved her life, offered a nun a chance to break her vows, put a phone sex line on his list of dependants..."

"Stop it, stop it!" Kelly covered her ears.

"But," Roz continued. "He also did surgery on a girl who had appendicitis and talked me down from the roof after I went into diabetic shock. That's the Dan you want."

"Thanks, Roz." Kelly beamed. "I know what to do." The blonde public defender hugged her and rushed off. Roz blankly took Kelly's coffee and raised it to her lips.

"Harry is going to kill me when he discovers what I did." She mumbled as she drank the coffee.

CHAPTER SIX  
"Louie," Alex Reiger walked through the Manhattan Courthouse after bailing out his former dispatcher. "This is it. This is absolutely the last time I'm bailing you out of trouble."

"Alex," De Palma turned back to him. "You don't have to. Just talk the new owners into giving me my old job back! Please!"

"I wouldn't do it if I wanted to." Reiger looked down on him. "You know the court order! A hundred feet from Checkerpoint Cabs at all times. I told you for years, Louie, about karma and now you are going to suffer the pangs of your corruption and disgrace from now on! Now, I don't expect you to pay me back for paying your fine, so do the next best thing and forget we ever knew each other. I got to get back to work."

Louie growled and started hitting his head on the wall near the pay phones. Art turned around and noticed him then started ignoring him. Through the ringing of his head, he heard a familiar voice on the nearby phones and turned round. He knew that face!

"Banta!"

"Excuse me." Tony Micelli put the receiver aside. "You know my cousin Tony!"

In the courtroom, things were usual.

"Mr. Smart," Harry looked down on the dapperly dressed man before him. "Why don't you explain to us why you accosted your paper delivery boy?"

"Why did I accost him?" Smart leaned on the bench as he thought. "Uh, yeah. Would you believe it was because he owed me money? No. What would you believe? Because he was a lousy paperboy? A chimpanzee in a suit? A case of mistaken identity?"

Harry didn't believe any of it. He just kept staring at Smart with his head balanced on his arm as Mac stood by him hunched over the top of the judge's bench. Dan and Kelly waited for something to happen.

"Okay," Smart leaned in secretly. "I'll tell you the truth." He looked around as Dan and Kelly looked at each other and leaned in to listen. "My full name is Maxwell Smart." Smart began. "And I'm the leader of a top secret espionage agency called Control. That was no paperboy, it was an agent of KAOS, an evil counter espionage group."

"Right..." Harry turned to Mac. "You want to call the place with the rubber rooms?"

"I have them on speed dial." Mac heard a phone as he answered the courtroom phone. Even as he picked up the receiver, he heard a phone ringing.

"Oh, that's me." Smart pulled off his right shoe, slid over the heel and began talking to the sole. "Smart here. Yes, 99? Just a minute." He took a pen from Harry and began jotting down a list. "Eggs, milk, bread, orange juice, toilet paper..." He noticed he was still being watched. "Do you mind? This is a private shoe!"

Harry and Mac looked at each other as Kelly leaned in. There was a voice on the shoe!

"Sir," Smart handed back the pen as he saved the list. "Are we through here?"

"Case dismissed!" Harry pounded his gavel and shook his head clear to ease the confusion. "What's next, Mac?"

"That's it, sir."

"Great!" Harry began pulling off his robe. "Just enough time to stop Christine from throwing out my sea monkeys!" He rushed to his office as Dan centered stoically on his papers. Kelly dropped hers and looked up to him.

"Dan?"

"Yes, counselor." He was stuck in business mode.

"Dan," Kelly started. "You made a gesture very few guys would do. You offered to take care of me and I embarrassed you. I... well, I didn't appreciate what you were doing."

"You didn't."

"Dan," Kelly leaned in and kissed him. "Would you marry me?" She turned the decision on him as his taciturn face slowly started beaming. He kissed her and held her tight.

"Well, I don't know..." He grinned foolishly. "I need a dress and then I have to tell the other girls." Kelly giggled with him. "Yes, I would like that." He kissed her again.

"Awwwwwwwwwwwww..." Mac, Roz and Bull watched from the arch to Harry's quarters.

"Can't we get some privacy around here!" Dan yelled at them.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mac thought he'd walked on to the set of the Addams Family as he entered Harry's chambers. The judicial chambers had turned to a chamber of horrors with the macabre collection of funhouse memorabilia and assorted real animals stuffed and staring at him with glass eyes.

"Oh my dear lord!" Mac grabbed his chest.

"I know!" Harry sat between Waldo his stuffed bear and a giant crystal ball. "Christine made me get all this stuff out of our apartment!"

"Imagine that." Roz stood by in disbelief.

"What's that big dark thing?"

"That's Bull." Harry pointed out.

"No," Mac pointed again as Bull made a face. "The thing behind him!"

"Oh," Harry squeezed through the crowded room as he picked up his croquet mallet. "That's Rufus, my stuffed Sasquatch. I bought him from a sideshow going out of business."

"Neat!" Bull patted the stuffed creature on the head. "Can I adopt him?  
He looks so real!"

"Bull or the Sasquatch?" Roz mumbled next to the tank of sea monkeys.

"Hi, Harry," Kelly walked in as Dan backed out behind her. She glanced the room over and recognized the menagerie staring back at her. Rather than say anything, she rolled her eyes and tried to ignore it.

"Harry," She continued grinning ear to ear. "Congratulate me!"

"On what?" Harry was partially grinning with the croquet mallet across his shoulders. Mac tried to reach over and take the weapon from him.

"Well," Kelly noticed Dan hiding in the hall. "Dan, get in here!" She stepped out and led him in on her arm as Dan grinned nervously and ridiculously. "We're married!" She beamed ear to ear!

Harry stopped smiling and glared to Dan. He slid the mallet down his arm to his hand and stood up straight after leaning on the desk. He looked to be in shock as his feelings about Fielding turned to repulsion and hate.

"Hey cuz' !" Dan grinned to make the worst out of the situation.

"Fielding, your ass is mine!" Harry screamed as Dan took off down the corridor. The sounds of fear rang out through the courthouse.

"Harry!" Kelly watched them tear out like a skinny alley cat on a tall oversized rat. "Don't kill him! I love him!"

"So," Roz was right behind her. "What are you going to do once you're a widow?"

CHAPTER EIGHT

"Harry..." Kelly followed after Harry as he carried his croquet mallet through the courthouse. "I love him so much. He's the most wonderful guy I ever met."

"Dan Fielding!" He looked at her a moment too upset to talk as he turned and continued to his chambers.

"You don't know him." Kelly tried to break his contempt for Dan's personality. She knew Harry liked Dan as a friend, but now she had to convert him to accept Dan into the family. "He's sweet and kind and he makes me feel all gooshy..."

"Dan Fielding!" Harry glared at her again as he pounded the croquet mallet into his palm.

"Can you please say my husband's name in a different way?" She asked. Harry turned and looked her a minute with all the lines of contempt festering through his face. His eyes were a bit flared and his nostrils inflamed as his teeth grinded.

"Dan Fielding!" He screamed once more.

"Harry, please..." Kelly followed Harry into his confused crowded chambers filled with the weird bric-a-brac of several years of collection. "I know you think you still need to protect me, but now you don't have to. I love Dan very much, and he loves me. We're meant for each other."

"Dan Fielding!" Harry grabbed his coat and hat and carried the mallet with him in case he met Dan on the way to his car. Kelly sighed in defeat as she was left almost alone in Harry's quarters. She turned to what was supposed to be Harry's wooden cigar store Indian. It was really Dan dressed in an American Indian costume and wearing enough brown make-up to appear wooden. He looked sort of ridiculous pretending to be frozen with such a stern expression on his face and the tomahawk clutched to his chest as his eyes nervously shifted back and forth.

"Dan," Kelly kissed him. "It's going to take longer to calm Harry down. You just... keep hiding until he sees it my way, and don't get depressed. We can go on our honeymoon as soon as Harry calms down."

Dan started whimpering through his disguise.

"I love you." Kelly kissed him.

"Ug." Dan spoke his own Indian dialect while feared Harry's wrath. He watched Kelly head out alone to leave him alone in the courthouse for the weekend. As she looked back, Dan shed a tear just like the American Indian in the commercial.

Seconds later, he started blubbering like an idiot.

END


End file.
